The Breakfast Bunch at Squirrel Fest!

Were you at Squirrel Fest? Each year the community celebration gets bigger and better, and this time The Breakfast Bunch was part of it. Here's a picture of our booth with information about Spell-ebration and our club. It was a beatiful day in the park, and a great day to be selling honey sticks, brownies and cold water.

Interesting Program Meeting

                         Taylor Mustion, Debbie Anderson, and Lisa Mustion

Our program meeting this week was an informative one, as Family House Academy owner and founder Lisa Mustion explained the school she runs. Her son, Taylor, a Gonzaga University graduate, is a teacher at the school and added his perspective. Our member Debbie Anderson is a volunteer there.

Lisa explained that Family House Academy is a small private school approved by the State of Washington. Lisa is a long-term educator with a passion to instill lifelong learning in students. Student skills are based on the State's essential learnings while meeting the individual needs and learning styles of all of the children and families. She said children emerge from the program with a stronger sense of self worth and respect for their families, their community, and their God.

The school has operated locally for 16 years and has an enrollment of 40 students in grades K - 8.

Installation of New Officers and Board

The officers and Board of Directors for our new year (starting June 1) were installed in a fun ceremony this past week. The Membership Committee dreamed up and performed an entertaining and meaningful ceremony, let by Krista Mead all dressed up in her hoop skirt and "Southern Belle" hat, complete with a down-home accent.

The evening began with Sue Yarbrough's reading of the Mother Theresa poem, "Anyway." If you're not familiar with it, one of the lines say, "The good you do today, will often be forgotten.  Do good anyway." The poem continues in that vein, and it was a good reminder for all of us about why we're Altrusa members.

After dinner, President Adele Gowdy announced the awards for Unsung Hero and Altrusan of the Year.

Debbie Johnson received the Unsung Hero award from President Adele Gowdy.

President Adele awarded Joyce Leitner as our Altrusan of the Year.
Then the officers and board for the 2013-14 year were installed. Winona Smith is our new president. Here she is with her big spoon, which was part of the installation ceremony, to use as she "stirs the pot of everyone's talents" to further our Breakfast Bunch goals.

Here is the entire 2012-13 Board of Directors:
President, Winona Smith
Vice President, Joyce Leitner
Immediate Past President, Adele Gowdy
Treasurer, Virginia Russeff
Secretary, Debbie Johnson
Communications Director, Gail Barber
One-Year Directors, Eleanor Clapp-Shumaker & Darlene Little
Two-Year Directors, Debbie Anderson & Susan Brookfield

The Planning Retreat for this next year's service projects and activities is scheduled for June 30.

Spell-ebration a Fun Success!

Spell-ebration, The Breakfast Bunch's biggest fundraiser of the year, was a great success again this year. Thanks to super chairwoman Joyce Leitner and her committee, plus lots of help from other members (& their spouses!), the March event was loads of fun.

This year's winnning team is pictured above - "ESS - Extraordinary Spelling Society."

Second place finishers were the "Menagerie of 3" from Pacific Tech Construction.

Third place went to "The Prudential Honey Buckets," who also won the prize for Best Costume.

Other prizes were awarded as follows:
Most Original Name - "Spell's Angels," Lower Columbia College students group
Most Team Spirit - "Wee Bee Lions," Pioneer Lions
Most Original Spelling - "Windermere Wordsmiths"

Our emcee, judges and word pronouncer were all repeats again this year. Thanks VERY much to Ray Bartley, George Raiter, Cathy Zimmerman, Cal Miller, and Don Correll for making the event wonderful.

Our sponsors were awesome as well:  We thank Rightway RV, Red Canoe CU, Fibre Federal CU, Lower Columbia College, Pacific Tech Construction, and Reprographics for their awesome support and community spirit. Spell-ebration earnings help us continue our local service projects, and it certainly is a fun way to do it!

Spell-ebration is in the air

Talk around town is buzzing (pun intended) with information and general chatter about Spell-ebration! It's coming up on March 8 at 7 pm at the Kelso Theatre Pub.

Teams are being formed, costumes are being planned, team names are being created --- you need to get in on it, too. Prizes are awarded not only for the best spellers, but for best costumes, most team spirit (loudest cheering section), most creative spellers, and most original team name. In other words, we're there to have FUN!

Today our members Susan and Gail were guests on Dave Whittacker's KEDO radio program, "Entertainment on the River." Our description of the event sounded like so much fun to the program hosts that when we left they were talking about forming a team to compete!

Of course, none of this would be possible without the help of our sponsors. Rightway RV is our major sponsor again this year. Thank you. (Their spelling team has come in 2nd the last two years so they're out for blood this time.) We also thank Pacific Tech Construction, Lower Columbia College, Red Canoe Credit Union, Fibre Federal Credit Union, Reprographics, and Country Village Nutrition for their support.

All this fun and support from sponsors allows The Breakfast Bunch to continue our service in the community. Get this on your calendar! It's a fun way to do your part to help those in our area who need it most.

Spell-ebration is Coming - Are you READY????

Join the fun at the Altrusa Breakfast Bunch 5th Annual Adult Spelling Bee on March 8 at 7 pm at Kelso Theater Pub. Teams consist of three or less people, 18 years or older. This is great fun for the whole family. Pick up registration forms at KTP or call Joyce at 360-673-1983. Team registrtion fee is $75 and includes pizza; audience tickets are $8 and also includes a slice of pizza.

There are prizes for not only the best spelling teams, but for team costumes and best cheering section, too. Here's a picture of last year's costume-winning team from the Emergency Support Shelter:

This event is made possible in part by the following sponsors:  Rightway RV, Lower Columbia College, Pacific Tech Construction, Ted Canoe Credit Union, and Fibre Federal Credit Union.

Scholarship Winners!

We had such fun at our program meeting this month! Maranda Erhardt and Brittany McNally, our scholarship recipients, came to have breakfast with us and share a little about their nursing studies.

Here are Maranda and Brittany

Maranda shared that she entered the nursing program at LCC when she was laid off from her state job. She's in her second quarter now, is getting married this summer, works part-time at the college and volunteers at the hospital emergency room! Wow! She plans to graduate from in December 2014.

Brittany is in her 6th quarter of the nursing program and will graduate in June. She told us she married last summer so she could empathize with Maranda's crazy schedule! She isn't sure yet which area of nursing she will pursue upon graduation - she says she's looking at the job market.

Our member Sue Yarbrough is an instructor in the nursing program at LCC, so she added to the girls' comments since she has had them both as students.

It's so wonderful to be able to meet the people our scholarships benefits. They were both delightful, and were both very happy to have the scholarship help.

It's Coming ... Spell-ebration!

It's time to start thinking about Spell-ebration, The Breakfast Bunch's Annual Adult Spelling Bee. It's coming up on Friday, March 8 at the Kelso Theater Pub @ 7 p.m., and promises to be a lively evening for both contestants and audience members.

Team registration costs $75 for the entire team (1 to 3 members) and includes a slice of awesome Pub pizza! Team members must be 18 years or older. Bring your co-workers, friends and family members. Audience tickets are $10 for reserved seating or $8 general admission, which includes a slice of pizza. Yum!

Here's the entry form:

Registration forms can also be picked up at Banda's Bouquets - 1414 Commerce, Longview, or you can register by phone with Joyce Leitner - 360-673-1983 or by email - jleitner@kalama.com.

It's the Holiday Season!

The happy rush is on and Altrusans are doing their part, as usual. We have a few projects going that will help you - you can decorate with gorgeous poinsettias, you can cover your gift list with a quality afghan specific to our area, and you can become the Santa the kids in your life have always dreamed of by buying some raffle tickets and winning our Radio Flyer Wagon Full of Toys! How's that for covering the bases?

Here's a picture of the afghan, called Jewels on the Rivers. It's a large 51" x 71" tapesty picturing each of the rivers, towns, and their "jewels" in our area. Afghans cost $55, and they come with a booklet with historical information reflecting the images. Afghans are available at Banda's Bouquets in downtown Longview (check out Banda's new storefront at 1414 Commerce). They're also at the Cowlitz County Hisorical Museum and at the Merk Deli.

The Radio Flyer Wagon (donated by Bob's Sporting Goods) is heaped with toys suitable for school-age kids, a $375 value. You can purchase raffle tickets for $2 each at Cowlitz Credit Union on Nov 30, Dec 1, 7, 8, 14 and 15; at Bob's Sporting Goods on Dec 1, 7, 8, 14, 15; and at Banda's Bouquets, open Monday through Saturday. 

And of course, our GORGEOUS poinsettias are on sale - $13 each or 3/$35 for the 6 1/2-inch potted plants. Call Joyce Leitner at 360-673-1983 to place your order. Special colors and sizes are also available. Plus, you get the warm, fuzzy feeling that your money is being kept right in our community and will be used to help those in need.

October News

Along with fall weather, October is always the start of lots of Breakfast Bunch projects and activities. Make a Difference Day is coming up on October 27. It's a day of community service projects celebrated by our parent organization, Altrusa International, as well as many other service groups and citizens all over the US. Here's how we're participating this year:

Organized by our member Winona, we're planning a Scavenger Hunt! Club members are collecting several items with point values. On October 27th we'll get together and tally up our collections, determine winners, and best of all, we'll be redistributing these items to the places they're needed in our community. Here's the list of things we're collecting.

If you'd like to contribute, please contact one of our members or email us at Altrusa-CowlitzCounty@hotmail.com

The Help

The latest in our club's zany and fun adventures was the end of September when several members volunteered to be "The Help" at member Debbie's home for her son's wedding rehearsal dinner party. Since Debbie was expecting guests from out of town as well as the wedding party, she asked if any of our Breakfast Bunch members would be interested in helping out at the party so she could be free to enjoy the evening. Turned out there was a lot of interest, beginning with member Krista's great idea to craft some appropriate uniforms for The Help. Several members got together at Krista's and sewed up a storm.

Once properly attired, a group of six Altrusans put on their best manners and arrived at Debbie's to await their instructions.

They set up the buffet tables when the wedding party was out rehearing, they replenished food items as hungry guests appeared, they waited tables, cleared and cleaned up, too. Word has it they provided a bit of entertainment for the guests, although that part may not have been planned!

The end of the evening found them in the kitchen, tired but still smiling.

Thanks, gals, for working hard and doing a great job. Plus, Debbie made a donation to our club's treasury in thanks for their efforts. What a team!

September Garage Sale a Success!

The weatherman provided a beautiful, sunny fall day - perfect for shopping. Our club members, friends and neighbors provided a ton of great items to sell. Our co-chairmen, Darlene and Adele, worked really hard to get things organized, and several members of the club assisted with layout, pricing, sales and clean-up.

Here are Eleanor, Darlene, Winona and Adele taking a much-needed break from the action. The sale ended a little after 4 p.m. and members plus a couple husbands made quick work of clean-up. Leftover items were donated to various non-profits around town. Thank you, thank you, to everyone who helped - and of course shopped (!!).

September Happenings

September has gotten off to a great start with lots of activities in the offing. Plans are set for our next big Garage Sale on Saturday, September 22!

Members are busy collecting sale items from friends, family and their own households, and there are bound to be some great items (and deals) available. Word has it that there will be tools, household goods, a bedroom set, and much more. Plan to be there! The address is 4039 Rosewood, Longview, and we'll be manning those tables from 8 a.m. until 4 p.m.

In October we'll be participating in "Make a Difference Day," a nationwide day of neighbors helping neighbors. Altrusa clubs all over the country plan projects for this particular day, which this year is October 27. Our club will be on a scavenger hunt that day, to find useful items that can be distributed through other service organizations in our area. More information to come on that!

One of the local groups we help support with our donations is Cowlitz 2 Fire & Rescue. Board member Maggi Mioliis, on left in the above photo, was our club's representative at the September 11 remembrance ceremony in Kelso. She presented our donation check at the ceremony.

Fall is full of opportunities for The Breakfast Bunch. In the weeks ahead, look for information on our annual poinsettia sale, our toy wagon raffle, and some Christmas giving ideas. See you soon!

Summer Happenings

The summer season always seems to be short around the Northwest, and since good weather didn't really begin until July, this year is no exception. Lots of activities and summer events packed into a few short weeks. We Breakfast Bunch gals got together for a really fun potluck BBQ on August 4. The weather was sizzling but we always have GREAT potluck food (lots of good cooks) and GREAT company. Our member Betty hosted us in her beautful backyard, complete with a large koi pond full of her amazing fish pets.

She let us feed them, too. You hold the pellets in your fist and they actually swim up and suck them out. Yes - their fish lips are actually touching you! Not your usual Saturday afternoon activity.

Here's our president Adele manning the bbq. She cooked a giant pork lion for us - yum.

And here are some of our members enjoying the day, the food, and the company.

Garage Sale - with music

In other news, our member Robbie had a moving sale at her house the end of July and invited our club to tag along with some tables. Seems that a good time was had by all - reports of singing, dancing and fun underlined the event. Oh yes, and we had a successful sales day, too. In fact, it was so successful that we decided to hold another sale on September 22. Are you ready????  Ba-ba-ba, Ba-barbara Ann!

Cowlitz County Day of Caring - September 12

The Breakfast Bunch will be participating in United Way's Day of Caring this year by joining RIF Day at Wallace School. (RIF means Reading is Fundamental). Our members will help kids pick out books and then read the books to them in the library that day. It promises to be a worthwhile adventure.

Garage Sale Notice:  The Altrusa Garage Sale is back! Look for us on Friday and Saturday, July 27 & 28, at our normal spot at 2659 Magnolia Street, Longview. We have lots of interesting items available for your shopping pleasure. Don't miss it!

In other news - we had a wonderful speaker at our meeting this week. Carly Monkman of the Melaleuca non-profit division came and told us about the Melaleuca products, why we might enjoy them (they're chemical-free) and how our purchases could make money for our club. The samples we tried at the meeting were great and it was interested to hear her reports of people who have been helped by using the chemical-free products in their homes. Melaleuca products are manufactured in Idaho, and they offer a wide variety of items for cleaning, skincare, etc. We'll let you know how we decide to be involved.


Upcoming Events - Our annual summer BBQ is set for Saturday, August 4 at member Betty's Trembley home in Longview at 3 pm. We're all looking forward to the usual - good food, good company, and lots of laughing. We're all invited to bring guests, so if you have a hankering for any of the above please feel welcome to attend.

Early Summer Happenings
The Breakfast Bunch has been busy these past couple of weeks! Our new club year starts in June so there's lots of planning going on, and we also added two new members.But first let's talk about our District Conference in May.

Conference this year was held at the Oregon Garden in Silverton, OR. There are 24 clubs in our district and each is eligible to enter a project in literacy or service categories. The really big news is that our club won 2nd place in the Letha H. Brown Award for Literacy with our Bertie Bear Reading Project! We were sooooo excited! Bertie Bear goes to the Head Start classrooms with us to read to the kids, and she is pictured above with her 2nd place ribbon.

Sue Yarbrough and Susan Brookfield were recently initiated into membership with an inspirational ceremony depicting Altrusa as an orchard with each member offering something unique. Attributes of membership were likened to different varieties of fruit and each new member received a basket full of fruit at the end.

At the start of each new fiscal year The Breakfast Bunch holds a planning retreat to discuss goals and make recomendations for service projects as well as ways to raise the money to complete those projects. This year attendees could purchase raffle tickets and hope to win one of the prizes members contributed. It turned out to be a lot of fun, with raffle items ranging from gift baskets to plants to dust buster supplies! The chocolate cake pictured above was one of the yummier items.

Featured Artwork ..... by our own Krista Mead
We have so many talented members in our club and luckily for us, they have a variety of talents! During the month of June the Backstage Cafe (next to the Kelso Theater ) is featuring Krista Mead's artwork!

The Membership Committee has invited everyone to a small gathering on Tuesday, June 26 at the Backstage Cafe at 5:30 p.m. Friends, spouses, members and guests are all invited. Wine and other yummies will be available for purchase.

Congratulations, Krista!

Spring?

One day it's sunny and the next it's raining so hard we can hardly see across the street. Must be spring in the Northwest! Our Altrusa club's new year begins in June, so officer elections and installation is always on our agenda in May. This year we had an installation dinner at a local restaurant, and had a fun, social time (plus a yummy dinner!) Here's a picture of our new officers. The bigwigs are President Adele Gowdy, VP Winona Smith, Treasurer Virginia Russeff, and Secretary Debbie Johnson. The supporting cast are committee chairs and board members.

One of the president's special awards is the Altrusan of the Year. This year Adele presented the award to Maggi Miollis, whose handles the graduation baskets we donate to graduates of the Emergency Support Shelter. As the women leave the shelter and establish their own homes, we provide them with a laundry basket full of housekeeping necessities such as cleaning products, sponges, towels, laundry detergent, and much more. As club respresentative, Maggi has delivered over 30 baskets in the last several months. Luckily, she is an excellent shopper!

Another springtime activity for Altrusa clubs all over our region is attending our district's conference. This year the conference was held in Silverton, OR at the Oregon Garden. Our district consists of 25 clubs in Washington, Oregon, Montana, and British Columbia. There were 150 Altrusans at conference this year! Conference includes leadership training seminars, times for meeting members from other clubs and exchanging ideas, and meeting our district's leadership in person. It is such an uplifting experience to be among so many women who are committed to service in their communities. Altrusan's rock!

Here's a picture of our club representatives going to the Awards Banquet - where our club won 2nd place in the Letha H. Brown Literacy Award competition. Wow! We were soooo excited. That's Gail, Adele, Virginia and Eleanor. Looks like they're having fun.

Our entry was our Bertie Bear reading program. We take Bertie, a very large stuffed bear, to the Head Start classes and act as guest readers for a story time. The club donates the book we read to the classroom, plus gives each child a coloring book with a story and coloring pages about Bertie Bear and her friend Tweeny Bee. The coloring book was designed by one of our members, Sandra Putaansuu. The kids LOVE Bertie and our members have a great time reading to them. It's a win-win. Here's a picture of Bertie celebrating her award.

 

Bertie Bear LOVES Literacy

Since literacy is a big part of Altrusa's mission, we felt so fortunate to be able to take our own Bertie Bear to Head Start classes at Broadway School recently. Our members (and Bertie Bear) participated as guest readers, reading a fun story to classes, helping them pick out books of their own to take home, and providing a Breakfast Bunch produced coloring book for each child. It's a fun (and enlightening!) day.

Spell-ebration 2012

Put Spell-ebration 2012 down in the history books! Last Friday, March 9, the Kelso Theater Pub was alive with costumed spellers, their enthusiastic supporters, Altrusans, costumed bees and a giant dog. What a fun night!! Thanks for all the support from our great sponsors and the community.Of course, it helps when it's a FUN fundraiser.

Our first place team this year was "The Queen Bees," representing the County Clerk's Office:  Beverly Little, Sheryl Moul and Leah Iverson. The battle for 2nd and 3rd places waged on for quite a while, but eventually the "Rightway Bees" claimed 2nd: Kari Pearson, Carl Wirkkala, and Dot Com, and 3rd went to "Totally Trendy" - Sarah Strain, Karen Case, & Michael Cowan. Good spellers, all!

There was lots of other fun. Best Cotume Award went to "Bee S.A.F.E." (Emergency Support Shelter); Best Name to "Ole Spellas" (Pioneer Lions); Most Creative Spellers were "Rightway Bees" (Rightway RV); and Best Team Spirit was awarded to the "Windermere Wordsmiths" (Windermere Real Estate).